"Oh, Matty, I remember when you were such a tiny thing, and so wild!"
"The Fiercest of the Fierce!" he reminded her, and she smiled fondly at him.
"You must be very tired. And hungry! You’ve just made such a long journey. Come inside. I have soup on the fire. And I want news of my father."
He followed her into the familiar cottage and waited while she reached for her walking stick that leaned against a wall and arranged it under her right arm. Dragging the useless leg, she took a thick earthen bowl from a shelf and went to the fire where a large pot simmered and smelled of herbs and vegetables.
Matty looked around. No wonder she had not wanted to leave this place. From the sturdy ceiling beams dangled the countless dried herbs and plants from which she made her dyes. Shelves on the wall were bright with rolls of yarn and thread arranged by color, white and palest yellow at one end, gradually deepening into blues and purples and then browns and grays at the other. On a threaded loom in the corner between two windows, a half-finished weaving pictured an intricate landscape of mountains, and he could see that she was now working on the sky and had woven in some feathery clouds of pinktinged white.
She set the bowl of steaming soup on the table in front of Matty and then went to the sink to pump water into a bowl for Frolic.
"Now. Tell me of Father," she asked. "He’s well?"
"He’s fine. He sends you his love."
He watched as Kira leaned her stick against the sink and knelt with difficulty to place the bowl on the floor. Then she called to Frolic, who was industriously chewing a broom in the corner.
When the puppy had come to her and turned his attention to the bowl of water, Kira rose again, sliced a thick piece from a loaf of bread, wedged her stick under her shoulder again, and brought the bread to the table. Matty watched the way she walked, the way she had always walked. Her right foot twisted inward, pulling the entire leg with it. The leg had not grown as the other had. It was shorter, turned, and useless.
He thanked her and dipped one end of the slice into his soup.
"He’s a sweet puppy, Matty." He half listened as she chattered cheerfully about the dog. His thoughts had turned to Frolic’s birth and how close to death the pup and his mother had been.
He glanced down at her twisted leg. How much more easily she would be able to walk—how much more steadily and quickly she would be able to travel—if the leg were straight, if the foot could be planted firmly on the ground.
He remembered the afternoon after the puppy and his mother had been saved. Today he was tired, very tired, from the long journey through Forest. But on that day, he had felt near death.
He tried to recall how long it had taken him to recover. He had slept, he knew. Yes. He remembered that he had slept for the afternoon, glad that the blind man had not been at home to ask why. But he had arisen before dinner—weary, still, but able to hide it, to eat and talk as if nothing had happened.
So his recovery had taken only a few hours, really. Still, it had been a puppy. Well, a puppy and its mother. Two dogs. He had fixed—cured? saved?—two dogs in late morning, and recovered from it by the end of the day.
"Matty? You’re not listening! You’re half asleep!" Kira’s laughter was warm and sympathetic.
"I’m sorry." He put the last bit of bread into his mouth and looked apologetically at her.
"You’re both tired. Look at Frolic."
He glanced over and saw the puppy sound asleep, curled into a mound of undyed yarn heaped near the door, as if the soft pile were a mother to doze against.
"I have work to do in the garden, Matty. The coreopsis needs staking and I’ve not had a chance to get to it. You lie down and get some rest, now, while I’m outside. Later we can talk. And you can go into the village and find your friends, for a visit."
He nodded and went to the couch to lie down on top of the knitted blanket that she had thrown across it. In his mind, he was counting the days they had left. He would explain to her that there was no time to visit with old pals.
He watched, his eyes heavy with exhaustion, as she took his bowl to the sink, placed it there, and then, leaning on her stick, gathered some stakes from a shelf, and a ball of twine. With her garden tools she turned to go outdoors. The twisted foot dragged in its familiar way. He had known everything about Kira for so long: her smile, her voice, her merry optimism, the amazing strength and skill of her hands, and the burden of her useless leg.
I must tell you this, Matty thought before he slept. I can fix you.
14
To his amazement, Kira said no. Not no to leaving—he hadn’t suggested that to her, not yet—but a definite, unarguable no to the idea of a straightened, whole leg.
"This is who I am, Matty," she said. "It is who I have always been."
She looked at him fondly. But her voice was firm. It was evening. The fire glowed in the fireplace and she had lit the oil lamps. Matty wished that the blind man were in the room with them, playing his instrument, because the soft, intricate chords always brought a peace to their evenings together and he wanted Kira to hear the music, to feel the comfort it brought.
He had not yet told her that she was to return with him. During their supper together, as Kira chattered about the changes in the old village, how much better things were now, he had only half listened. In his mind he had been weighing what to tell her and when and how. There was so little time; and he needed, Matty knew, to present it to her in a decisive and convincing way.
But suddenly he heard her make a casual comment about her handicap. She was describing a small tapestry she had embroidered as a wedding gift for her friend Thomas, the woodcarver, who had recently been married.
"It was all finished and rolled up, and I decorated it with flowers," she said, "and on the morning of the wedding I set out, carrying it. But it had rained, and the path was wet, and I slipped and dropped the tapestry right into a mud puddle!" Kira laughed. "Luckily it was still early, so I came back here and was able to clean it. No one ever knew.
"My leg and stick are a nuisance when it’s wet outdoors," she said. "My stick has never learned to navigate mud." She reached over to the pot and began to pour more tea into their mugs.
Surprising himself, he blurted it out. "I can fix your leg."
The room fell completely silent except for the hiss and crackle of the fire. Kira stared at Matty.
"I can," he said after a moment. "I have a gift. Your father says that you do, too, so you’ll understand."
"I do," Kira agreed. "I always have. But my gift doesn’t fix twisted things."
"I know. Your father told me yours is different."
Kira looked down at her hands, wrapped around her mug of tea. She opened her fingers, spread her hands upon the table, and turned them over. Matty could see the slender palms and the strong fingers, calloused at their tips from the garden work, the loom, and the needles that she used for her complicated, beautiful tapestries. "Mine is in my hands," she said softly. "It happens when I make things. My hands…"
He knew he shouldn’t interrupt. But time was so short. So he cut her off, and apologized for it. "Kira, I want you to tell me all about your gift. But later. Right now there are important things to do and decide.
"I’m going to show you something," he told her. "Watch this. My gift is in my hands, too."
He had not planned this. But it seemed necessary. On the table lay the sharp knife with which she had sliced bread for their supper. Matty picked it up. He leaned down, and pulled the left leg of his trousers up. Kira watched, her eyes confused. Quickly, without flinching, he punctured his own knee. Dark red blood trickled in a thin crooked line down his lower leg.